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Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

> you can write down what needs to be done for each open loop, and that basically closes the loop for your brain and it will stop reminding you of that thing all the time

This plus just do the thing and it's like a super power. I realized I was letting simple things that take little time roll around in my head all day because of procrastination. So now, if I can do something right then - I do it.

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This is part of the system actually - if something takes less than two minutes then just do it. But I think that’s sort of in a separate phase from the initial writing down of something… Like you can write something down briefly when you think of it to put it in your “inbox” but then you have a set time later to process your “inbox” and put everything in the right place, etc. and at that point if something takes less than two minutes then you just do it. Otherwise in contexts like work I think you could easily swamp yourself trying to do quick tasks like responding to messages and take a long time to get to anything important.

That said, I haven’t finished the book and truthfully part of the drawback of it is that it’s a bit of a complex system with a lot of moving parts, which has slowed down my desire to really finish it. But it still seems like if you could get past the parts that seem complicated and make it work for you it’d be great.

The 'pomodoro technique' starts dead simple but builds to quite a complex system. Might be worth a look.

I've used the first dead simple bit myself to get things I don't like doing much done. I've suggested just that first part (four or five bullet points) to older teenager students for exam revision with some success.

This is the answer, and it is what I do as well.

Free up your brain power for the next task by completing open tasks.

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